Monday, August 5, 2019

The more the rhetoric on immigration and sovereignty heats up on Twitter, the more things stay the same since Obama … or worse.

Following two decades of record immigration from the Middle East without any ability to vet loyalties to America, President Trump campaigned on a moratorium of immigration from countries with a large presence of terrorism. In the end, he only shut it off from Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and Sudan, and even then, thanks to the administration’s capitulation to the lower courts, it was watered down several times. Yet, the Left still accuses him of an across-the-board ban on Muslim immigration. Beto O’Rourke said as much last night during the Democrat debate.

In reality, not much has changed since Obama. Yesterday, I warned about the abuse of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and how it has turned into an indefinite amnesty program for people who abused our system, allowing criminals to remain in the country. Well, today, the Trump administration agreed to extend TPS for Syrians, not just for the standard six months, but for 18 months, according to the Washington Post’s Nick Miroff.

In other words, despite the promise to be the first president to finally make Temporary Protected Status, um, temporary, it will now likely remain forever like all the others. It’s already been in place for over seven years, and now that Trump has blinked once – and for such a long extension – it will never be revoked. He did the same with El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen.

Thus, out of the few remaining countries left from his original promise of a moratorium, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen all have the TPS loophole. What’s next? Is he going to grant TPS to Iran?

Ultimately, the DHS secretary is the one who signs off on this decision, and Kevin McAleenan is clearly not in line with Trump’s campaign promises.

Roughly 7,000 Syrians have been given TPS as of early this year. I’m sure we can rest easy that all of them have been properly vetted and that none of them are like Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, a Syrian refugee who was recently arrested by the FBI for attempting to bomb a church in Pittsburgh.

According to the Congressional Research Service, roughly 417,000 foreign nationals from 10 countries remain here with TPS status. Remember, the longer these people remain in the country under a program that was designed to run no longer than 18 months, the more opportunity they have to adjust their status to a green card. Also, either way, any child born to them is erroneously viewed as an American citizen. Temporary, indeed!